Sunday, October 9, 2016

My review of Luke Cage.

Several times while watching it I did
find myself actually bored, waiting for something to happen. The first
half is well paced, but right about the first plot twist it slows way
down to more political pandering and manipulation that stuck me as oddly
similar to Star Wars Episode 1. It did pick back up again for sure,
however I found the climax didn't live up to the hype. It was over very
quickly and then moved all the people into position for a possible Season 2.

The acting was superb all around. The characters were well rounded,
deep and interesting. The one exception was the star, who shined at
times but had trouble relaying the layers of the Cage character. It
might have been the writing as well, but sometimes he was fantastic and
others he just wasn't believable.

There is, of course, much more
to this series. Harlem itself could almost be considered a character. It
was more then the backdrop for the story, but was integral to it. The
music also was outstanding with a mix of classic and modern R&B and
some stellar hip-hop (of which I am not a fan but I enjoyed it). Racial
issues were front and center the entire time, both good and bad. They
did not sugar coat anything related to black on black crime, but didn't
sugar coat race and police issues either. My favorite line came early
"Everyone has gun, no one has a father". There were also several jokes
about "nothing police fear more then a bulletproof black man." Overall
it was very thought provoking.

Lastly the tone of the show was
quite a bit different then Jessica Jones or Daredevil, no where near as
dark. The action wasn't as brutal as I found in Daredevil (the season 1
hallway fight is the best thing ever in media IMO), and the themes were
not as troubling and damaging as Jones. It was quite refreshing and made
it no where near as hard to watch as the others.

I have to give
it 3.5 out of 5 stars. the pacing in the second have left much to be
desired, and it just didn't hold my attention quite as much as the
previous Netflix/Marvel series.